Fast Company released an infographic showing the life expectancy of nearly every country in the world including Kuwait. In Asia, Kuwait came in at 11th place with a life expectancy of 77 while Macau and Japan both topped Asia’s list with 84. Regionally, both Bahrain and Qatar performed better than Kuwait with a life expectancy of 78.

So where would you have to be born to live the longest? The answer is Monaco where the life expectancy is 90 years of age. Check out the full article [Here]

That’s probably because all the old expats are forced to leave since no job means no residency. Sad that people who have lived and worked in kuwait all their lives (40+ years) can’t call kuwait home and retire here.

I 100% agree and I think people like yourself, who were born and raised in this country, should AT LEAST be able to have a permanent visa or an investor visa where you can function in the country without the watchful eye of a ‘sponsor’. If someone has no criminal record why should someone have to have a sponsor to do anything when they are an active member of this society? End ‘the sponsorship system’ it is modern day slavery! Unfortunately, I don’t see it ever going away or the Kuwaitis evaluating their visa structure anytime soon. Not only would it be advantageous for them to implement an investor visa, but it would be civil for them to implement a permanent visa for long time residents, but that’s putting the horse before the cart.

That is sad, I agree, but what would they live off of? Retired Kuwaitis get a pension and usually have a home and a family that can support them at that point. Retired Foreigners don’t have an income unless they’ve invested into their own back home. Add to that the fact that they’d have to be renting (can’t own land) and they might not necessarily have a support structure here and I don’t know how a retiree could afford to pay the pretty high rents with no monthly income.

Also from what it seems like the majority of foreigners are here for the money and would like to leave the moment they stop getting it anyway.

You must be aged 18 or over.
You must be of sound mind.
You must intend to continue living in the UK, or to continue in Crown service, the service of an international organisation of which the UK is a member, or the service of a company or association established in the UK.
You must be able to communicate in English, Welsh or Scottish Gaelic to an acceptable degree.
You must have sufficient knowledge of life in the UK.
You must be of good character.
You must meet the residential requirements (see below).

Residential requirements
To demonstrate the residential requirements for naturalisation, you must have:

been resident in the UK for at least five years (this is known as the residential qualifying period); and
been present in the UK five years before the date of your application; and
not spent more than 450 days outside the UK during the five-year period; and
not spent more than 90 days outside the UK in the last 12 months of the five-year period; and
not been in breach of the Immigration Rules at any stage during the five-year period.

How many expats have lived in Kuwait for 40 years and don’t have a Kuwaiti nationality? Zero. Most expats stay in Kuwait for a few years then leave. Less than 2% of expats in Kuwait have been living in Kuwait for 40 years.

By the way, the Kuwaiti government naturalized 200,000 foreign immigrants between the years 1970 and 1985.

What do you mean zero? My dad has been here 40 years now and he doesn’t have a Kuwaiti nationality. There are TONS of people who have lived in Kuwait for over 40 years and don’t have the nationality. I’ve been in Kuwait for 35 years, you think I’m going to get the nationality 5 years from today?

Also I’m not sure what you’re trying to prove by stating that majority of expats leave after a few years. The point I was making is expats can’t stay here forever even if they wanted to.

Kuwait we can say, from the looks of it, just want to protect it’s culture and ethnicity (mostly Arabian peninsula obviously, Persian, Arab iranian (yes arabs migrated from arab penin to iran for food, water then back e.g alawadhi etc), and finally hemitics (somalia, ethiopia etc) ). I too have a friend whose family has lived here ever since they gave out the first degree passports(however u call it) in 1961-2 was it? Their family is known to have been here a long time they are ethnically palestinian/jordanian . and considering the forces of globalisation and its effects some countries are justified to use protectionist measures countries like china also use things like this with mongols and etc etc but also use some protectionist measures for reasons of worker exploitation (more justified reason) but nonetheless why should this be looked at as a bad thing? i can see why people would see it as being a bad thing, maybe perhaps give some extra benefits to people who have been contributing to the economy this long but i agree with the strictness of the nationality i’d rather kuwait not become an immigrant country like how USA was in early 1900s we would lose our culture and history. but it is important i think to make note of foreigners who have helped throughout kuwait’s history of which there are many. Qatar didn’t seem to get the memo lol

I’m sorry to hear that. My great grandparents were Iranians, my maternal family was naturalized in the 1980s.

I think the government restricts the naturalization of Levant Arabs because they fear another Gulf War-Palestinian issue. The government naturalized Iranians and Saudis more than they naturalized Palestinians and Lebanese.

I personally believe that everyone born in Kuwait since the 1980s and earlier should get naturalized. Kuwait’s ethnic identity has always been diverse and cosmopolitan since the pre-oil era. There are Kuwaiti families who are descendants of pre-oil Indian merchants, there are many Kuwaitis of (non-Arab) Persian ancestry, there are also many Kuwaitis of Iraqi ancestry, African ancestry, Turkish ancestry and even Kurdish ancestry.

There are white Kuwaitis, there are black Kuwaitis. Naturalization should be given to all who qualify.

Kuwait’s naturalization policy is obviously very discriminatory because despite the naturalization of 200,000+ foreign immigrants, the government mainly naturalized Saudis and Iranians during that period. Other people who qualified for naturalization were denied citizenship, for no reason.

You missed a point in my statement and I mentioned an ‘Investor’ visa. With an investor visa you have a business in country and can sponsor your family members. Therefore, although you can’t own real estate property, you would have a livelihood which might entail remaining in the country. Threatened? Don’t be. It is beneficial for your national economy that foreigners own and run businesses in your country.

Your ideas about Kuwait’s demographics are completely wrong btw. The majority of expats are not European or American, they’re actually a very small minority. There are about 13k Americans vs. 650k Indians.

I never claimed that the majority of expatriates are from Europe and America. Most expatriates who stay in Kuwait at the age of 55 and above are usually Westerners.

It’s usually Americans and Europeans who stay longer, due to their high-paying jobs. Most Asian expatriates have manual labour jobs (and to a lesser extent, retail and domestic) so they stay in Kuwait for a shorter period of time.

Humm fascinating … the higher the stander of living is the higher the expected life span its a proportionate relation. But you know what in the end every body dies and you can’t enjoy life over 70 i guess

skewed population regarding monaco. Then numbers are higher because people of live there have lots of money, people with money are generally older or tend to get married to older people, therefore a large percentage of the population is old. This does not mean that factors such as quality of life and healthcare in the country have made contributions to the higher life expectancy, it means that if you live long enough and have enough money then chances are you will eventually die in monaco.